Everything I Needed to Know About Renovation I Learned From ‘Fixer Upper’

Even the birds knew we were in trouble.

In addition to two canaries, the previous tenants in our rental had left three dressers, a kitchen table, two chairs, a storage cabinet, mountains of newspaper and a smell—not unpleasant but definitely unfamiliar.

The extra furniture was the least of our problems. Every room had a different theme: a nautical bathroom, a country dining room, a fishing kitchen, an ’80s living room. There was zero uniformity to the paint colors: green flannel wallpaper in the dining room; pink flower print in the bathroom; a fish wallpaper border in the kitchen. The wooden floors were uneven, stained a bright yellow, and their clear lacquer was lifting. And the owners had used gold glitter to hide the popcorn ceilings in the main living spaces, creating an unwanted disco ball effect.

Sitting in our new living room, squinting through the gold glitter, regret was setting in.

I did the only thing I could think of: I turned on HGTV and binged the whole first season of “Fixer Upper.” I devoured interviews with Joanna, pinned all her ideas, memorized Chip’s mantras, and then faced our fixer upper. Here’s what we learned.

We started by removing the wallpaper in the bathroom, because neither of us could enjoy a shower without the room spinning. My husband purchased all the removal aids he could find—sprays, softeners, scraper kits—but none worked as well as patience and a good, sturdy spackle knife. The paper came off in small pieces, forcing slow peels. And although the room wasn’t big, by day three, we felt every foot of it.

Chip’s mantras provided comfort. “Keep at it,” yelled Chip. We would finish a section, eat dinner, watch “Fixer Upper” and then return to peeling. It took a few days, all of them painstakingly tedious. But as we admired the blank canvas, all the color possibilities opened up. A fever hit us, and “Demo Day” became our favorite day.

The more we peeled, the closer we were to our visions.

Walls clean, we moved on to painting. Standing in the paint aisle, well into our twentieth fight, we settled on a “Dove Grey” for the living spaces. We were a whole room and a bucket of sweat in when I realized “Dove Grey” was in fact purple. Barney purple.

The next day, on the verge of a breakdown, we found ourselves standing in the paint aisle again. Completely lost and considering beiges, we turned to Joanna and picked a shade of gray she’d been loyal to for years. In the store’s stark lighting, the color omitted a green hue. It made us nervous but we returned home and painted with conviction. A goddess of gray and neutrals, we knew she wouldn’t let us down. The green gray shone a true gray and didn’t disappoint. We painted most of the apartment this color and white over the glitter on the ceiling.

When removing something isn’t an option, Joanna proposed restoring. We couldn’t remove our floors, so we sanded off the polish and stained them a light color—completely on her recommendation. We loved it so much, we decided to stain an existing railing the same color.

We took kitchen cabinet doors off and painted them white and purchased matching lighting covers and door knobs—another Joanna tip—to create a seamless open feel. Chip’s demoing came in handy when faced with an eyesore: the broken kitchen vent. With the owner’s permission, we ripped it from the wall, instantly doubling the size of our kitchen.

All that was left was decor, but the renovating had left a hole in our budget. But Joanna encouraged us to “think outside the box,” and so we did. Foregoing expensive shops, we scoured secondhand stores and antique shops and reached out to family and friends. We came away with a set of couches, a vanity (which became our TV stand), a windowpane, a mirror, a barely-chipped vase, and two TV dining tables that we used as bedside tables.

This was another Joanna suggestion, and it inspired lantern lighting, window awnings instead of expensive curtains, and baskets for storage.

After four weeks of hard work and perseverance—and many pizzas—we were ready to move in. I could hear Joanna’s voice as we opened our front door to family and friends for the first time: Welcome home.

We have lived here happily for three years, sharing quiet Christmas mornings and rowdy New Year’s Eves with loved ones. Our open shelving brims with cards and photos, reminders of our many blessings. The light floors proved forgiving as we cuddled and played with our dogs. Our peaceful gray bathroom has heard many renditions of songs over long showers. The vanity-turned-TV-stand found true purpose as board game storage, perfect for when friends visited. The open kitchen cabinets harbored recipes that donned our holiday tables. The sweet windowpane that hung in the dining room was a gentle reminder that spring was near.

Some say that investing money in a rental is a mistake. As we face moving once more, we couldn’t be more convinced of the opposite. It wasn’t money we invested mindlessly or time wasted—it was love poured into a home that held our family and the best years of our lives.